


Second First Time Around

by Hermaline75



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, F/M, Incest, M/M, Not as dark as you think probably, Repressed Memories, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 01:43:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3339215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermaline75/pseuds/Hermaline75
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor moves into an inherited house with his fiancee, Jane.</p><p>Someone is waiting for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second First Time Around

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a ghost story.

Bed is supposed to be safe.

Any child who has shivered beneath a blanket to keep the monsters out or taken a running jump from the bedroom door to make sure no hands from underneath could grab their ankles knows this.

Bed should be safe.

And some children learned that blankets couldn't keep the monsters out and that they were clever and wore friendly faces.

Some learned that their own thoughts would cause more trouble than monsters ever could.

And others found someone else to help them face the terrors of the night. Pledged to stand together and support, to be a hand to grasp in the darkness.

Trying to keep out the monsters and the ghosts.

\--

"I had no idea your family owned a place like this," Jane said, awe evident in her voice.

"Yeah," Thor said vaguely, trying to navigate the potholes in the winding driveway. "I never exactly expected to inherit it. My grandfather is probably spinning in his grave. He never liked me much."

"I'm sure that's not true."

He glanced across at her fondly, her eyes wide and shining, bitten nails with polish chipping off, the little unobtrusive engagement ring glinting.

It was nice to have a real house together before they were even married, he had to admit. Even a house in the middle of nowhere that probably had a million structural issues. 

They could always sell if it was too much trouble. But the house had been in the family since the 1840s. His father should have lived here, but his mobility issues prevented it. Thor would hate to disappoint him by letting it go.

And the isolation appealed to Jane. There would be no light pollution out here. She'd be able to see the stars that much clearer.

The lock squeaked, the hinges sang with age, the heavy wooden door creaking open.

"Wow," Jane breathed. "It's like...out of a book or something."

It had been years since he'd last been here. He couldn't have been much older than 7 or 8 the last time. But it was familiar all the same. The whitewashed walls, the threadbare carpets... The family had been rich once. This was all that remained.

"This is so cool. The ceilings are amazing. So high!"

Thor reached for her hand, letting her lead the exploration. The furniture was still here, ancient and battered, along with dusty old curtains and table cloths.

"No-one's been here, huh? Not since..."

"No, not since he went into hospital. He would barely talk to us."

"What happened?"

"I don't really know. I was pretty young. We just couldn't come back here and I remember my mother was so sad. And we never talk about it. I don't... I don't like to ask. It happened. I don't need to know why."

"You're not curious?"

Jane was always curious. Her life revolved around asking questions and finding things out.

Thor shrugged. "A little. But it makes her unhappy. So I don't ask."

They'd climbed the dark stairs now, exploring the upper corridor, room after empty room, marvelling at the ancient bath with its clawed feet, all the way along to the smallest bedroom.

"This is where I slept when we visited," Thor said, every inch of peeling paint on the door an old friend. "I'd forgotten it."

It was difficult to get in, nearly sealed shut by years of neglect. Jane squealed with delight at what was inside.

"Oh, adorable," she said, picking up one of a row of stuffed bears. "Were these yours?"

"I don't think so. I don't remember them. Don't remember much full stop. But I guess they must be."

"Maybe your grandfather bought them, hoping you'd come back some time."

It didn't seem likely, but Thor nodded, watching as she tangled her fingers in a mobile of planes above one of the beds.

"I don't remember two beds," Thor said thoughtfully. "There was one bed. I remember that much. One large bed, bigger than I'd ever seen. Bigger than my parents' bed."

"Could it have been these two pushed together?"

"I guess."

"What a sweet room. I love to think of little you playing up here. I bet you were so cute."

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, his hand slipping easily down to her hip as they retraced their steps.

That night they lay together on an overstuffed mattress, listening to the way the house creaked and groaned. It was going to take some getting used to.

\--

The removal men arrived the next day, depositing their various boxes. It would not surprise Thor at all if they were left for years without being unpacked.

Jane was busying herself with cleaning, trying to make the house livable before she had to start going to the university during the day again, seeking research grants and trying to avoid lecturing. Thor felt like he'd spent hours taking down curtains for washing and trying to vacuum far too many rooms.

She'd grinned when she found an ancient carpet beater and let him go out into the garden piled high with linens needing the dust knocked out of them.

The end of August was hanging over them, the air still and warm. It was pleasant just being outside, the cloths balanced in two piles on top of a rusted wheelbarrow.

It was hypnotic to watch the plumes of dust rise up, little clouds of his own making against a cloudless sky. He could have gone on for hours steadily thwacking sheets and runners.

Distantly Jane was tapping on a window and he shielded his eyes against the dazzling sun, trying to spot her in the silhouetted building.

 _Tap, tap, tap._

A speck of falling dust got into his eye. 

_Tap, tap, tap._

"Yeah, babe, just a sec." 

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

"What?!" 

"Thor?" 

He span to find Jane innocently holding two mugs. 

"I thought you could use a break," she said. 

"You weren't... You weren't tapping on the window?" 

"No," she said, pressing a mug of orange juice into his hands. "Must have been a pigeon or something." 

"Yeah. Must have."

He kept staring upwards, eyes drawn to the little window of his former room.

"I'm going to start dinner," Jane said. "See if I can handle the range. If you want to try out the bath, it should be ready when you are."

"OK. I'll finish this lot tomorrow."

The plumbing was terrifying, but the water was heavenly once the worrying clanking stopped.

And the bath itself was...pretty cool. The whole place needed updated, bit by bit as they slowly got the money for it, but he'd like to keep some of the original features if possible. He liked old things. They were somehow homely.

Might want to try to get some insulation or something though. He could hear Jane moving around downstairs in the kitchen, listening to something vaguely familiar on the radio. He sang along as the water went grey from all the dust on his skin.

Jane wasn't the best cook in the world, but what she'd practised she was good at.

"Nice singing," she said, planting a plate of spaghetti bolognaise in front of him.

"Well, couldn't resist with you having the radio on."

She frowned slightly. "I didn't. I could just hear you in the bath."

"No. I heard it. Definitely, a man singing."

She tried and failed to hide her concern. "Maybe you caught too much sun today. Mind playing tricks on you."

Thor frowned. "Yeah. Must have."

\--

They couldn't really afford to do much to start with. Jane was the main breadwinner, but her salary couldn't handle a complete refurbishment project. Certainly not one of this size.

But they could paint at least. Scrap off peeling wallpaper, freshen everything up, add layers of varnish to the bannisters.

Thor started to feel like the house really was theirs once their bedroom was a gentle shade of pale blue instead of the yellowing cream it was before.

They had sleepy sex that night, almost too exhausted. A gentle, sweet rolling of hips, lazy orgasms, falling asleep kissing.

Which made waking up to Jane screaming all the more awful.

Thor bounded out of bed and chased the sound of her voice down to the little bedroom.

"What is it? Did you hurt yourself?"

She looked up at him, trembling, pointing with an unsteady hand to the corner of the room.

"You were sleeping so peacefully," she said. "So I decided to get started myself and... And look..."

He approached the corner she was pointing at, peeling back the wallpaper.

It was his name. His name written over and over again, Thor, Thor, Thor, Thor, THOR...

He peeled more, tearing it off, his name scrawled hundreds of times beneath the paper, neatly, roughly, carefully, sloppily, in huge capitals and in tiny script.

"Why?" Jane said. "Why is it like that?"

Thor shook his head. "I guess I must have done it. When I was a kid, the bed was against the wall, I must have crawled under there and...practised writing my name. And then my grandparents repapered over it."

None of the versions looked like his handwriting or like a child wrote them. But Jane slumped in relief, accepting his explanation.

"What did you think it was?" he asked.

"I don't know. It just scared me. The idea of someone obsessively writing your name just... Eurgh..."

She shivered.

They decided to make the small room into Thor's office, where he could write the articles and short stories that paid his bills. If they wanted children later, there were other rooms they could use.

The room seemed chillier when they moved the beds out and repainted it, covering all the writing. One of them must have been blocking a draft.

\--

Jane had to go back to work all too soon, leaving Thor alone all day, but once he was used to all the strange noises the house made and the way the doors sometimes blew open in high winds, he was perfectly happy.

Of course, he looked forward to the weekends, when Jane wasn't exhausted from her commute and they could spend time together, eating picnics in their own yard and organising their things, curling together on their couches to read, just existing comfortably in the same space.

It was surprisingly wonderful. And Jane loved it too. She'd set up her telescope in one of the empty rooms and would probably have stayed up all night gazing if Thor had let her.

He caught himself singing. Old songs, things just on the edge of memory that vanished when he tried to remember them clearly.

In fact, a lot of things seemed to be slipping from his mind. He seemed to forget his towel often while in the bath. He'd search every room for a specific reference book only to find it back in his little office in plain view. The battle between him and his keys could last for hours, even when he was sure he'd put them in a sensible place.

Probably due to too much leisure.

\--

He woke in the middle of the night mid-October, roused by the house creaking. His hand automatically sought Jane's in the darkness, curling around her fingers.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

No reply, not even to a faint squeeze. Still asleep.

More noises, almost as though someone was moving around.

Thor slipped out of bed, not even glancing back, picking up the poker that they still kept in this room for novelty.

If it was a bird come down one of the chimneys, he could just release it. That had happened before. Not at night, admittedly.

But as he got closer to the source, one of the empty rooms, he could definitely hear a person. Someone muttering and gasping to themselves.

He raised the poker high and shoved the door open, ready to beat whoever had broken into their home.

Jane screamed.

"Jesus, Thor! You nearly gave me a heart attack."

She stared dumbly at her, arm going limp.

"I told you," she said. "I'm measuring the brightness of the meteor shower tonight. There's actually some really weird and interesting auroras too, but... Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Sorry, I... I woke up, heard noise. Still asleep, probably. Sorry."

"Don't worry. You look like you've seen a ghost, that's all."

He forced a smile.

\--

He rationalised it, of course. They were rational people. He was about to marry a doctor of astrophysics, for goodness' sake.

He'd been asleep. He'd dreamt the hand was there because he expected it to be there. There was no hand.

There was no room in this house for ghosts.

He read up on hauntings a little anyway, pretending it was story research. Mostly TV fantasy stuff online, a little modern alternative belief.

He burned incense for comfort, telling Jane he was concerned about moths.

And for a while, there was nothing. No footsteps in the empty house, no bleeding walls, no voices whispering in the dark. No mysteriously moving objects.

Just an old building and an over-active imagination.

The nights began to draw in, the air colder. The wood-burning stove became a little altar for them, kneeling before it wrapped in blankets and each other.

Thor grew to love the chilly nights when Jane would crawl into his lap to be enveloped in his arms and he could watch the play of shifting light on her hair as she talked about her day, excited about this or that project, asking about the novel he kept starting...

He liked to carry her to bed, asleep during the week, to lay her down on their bed. Even unconsciously, she would cling to him. And if awake, often she would refuse to let go, playfully hanging on until he flopped backwards with her on top.

It would undoubtedly surprise her students and colleagues that Jane could be passionate about something that wasn't at the other end of the universe, or only measured in exact decimal points. She was delicate as stardust, burning like the sun, irresistible as the pull of gravity.

She liked to lie beneath him, encouraging more forceful thrusts, crying out into the darkness. She liked to ride him, breasts heaving with effort, playing at holding him down.

She liked to sit in his lap, face to face, kissing him hard as they moved together. Being inside her, around her, with her was everything he'd ever wanted in all its forms. It was home. Safety. Love.

They were enjoying a Saturday evening when he suddenly felt them being watched. 

He couldn't quite pin it down, but something wasn't right. 

His eyes were fixed on the door, convinced it was about to open, hands protectively wrapping around Jane's back, nails digging in...

"Ah!"

"Sorry."

"No, it's good. It's so good."

He did it again, just gentle scratches, not enough to break skin. Jane had one hand between their bodies to work her clit, fingers brushing against Thor's cock.

She kissed him, breaking his concentration and bringing his attention back to the beautiful woman currently having sex with him and the fact that his body was really rather happy with its current situation.

He bucked up more forcefully, making Jane moan, feeling her tightening up still further around him the second before he came.

He thought he heard the door click firmly shut behind her, but being pushed backwards onto the mattress for intense post-sex intimacy rather took priority.

\--

The house moaned ever more the colder it got. When the snow came in mid December, they seemed more cut off than ever before.

So it wasn't exactly a surprise when Jane called one night to say she couldn't safely drive home and would be staying with a friend. Thor ate alone. Read in front of the stove alone. Went to bed alone. Slept alone. Woke up to someone kissing him.

At first he assumed that Jane had somehow made it home but...

But she didn't taste right.

He opened his eyes and shoved forward when he failed to recognise the person in front of him.

The man in front of him.

"Not exactly the welcome I was expecting, Thor."

A dark-haired man, laughing, who knew his name and...

"Who the fuck are you?"

The man's face fell.

"This isn't right," he said. "You're supposed to remember now. Maybe you need a more physical reminder..."

Thor leapt from the bed as the stranger approached.

"You stay back," he said, looking for a weapon. "Keep away from me. How did you get in here?"

"Get in? I barely left. You left. But now you're back. And it's finally time to come home."

Great. Wonderful. Somehow a possibly deranged person had got into their house and was trying to kiss him and...do other things with him...

"I've been waiting for months for your lady to be away long enough that I could steal you."

Still, he hadn't been stabbed or anything. Maybe if he just kept they guy talking, he'd be able to escape, get help.

"Who are you?" Thor repeated.

The man grinned at him. "You really don't remember? Not even from your human life? This is not the first time I've tried to take you."

Thor frowned. Something was coming back to him. Something from so, so long ago...

"Loki?"

A sigh of relief. "You remember me. I knew you would. True love's kiss works after all."

Thor was forced to back away again as he approached.

"I don't know why I know your name," he said helplessly. "I don't know who you are."

The stranger - Loki - held up his hands in a show of innocence.

"Take your time. I can wait. A little while longer will hardly make a difference. And then you'll remember and everything will be all right."

Thor shook his head. His mind was full of confusing images. A smiling face. Gentle fingers in his hair. Singing strange songs.

Holding hands in the dark.

Loki made no attempt to stop him as he made a dash for the door and ran down the stairs.

His hands trembled as he dialled a familiar number, waiting for his mother's voice, happy to be hearing from him.

"Mom... When I was little, did I ever talk about someone called...Loki?"

There was stunned silence and then a sigh.

"You've started remembering things, haven't you? Oh, Thor... I knew you shouldn't have gone back to that house."

"Who is Loki?"

Apart from a man who was calmly walking into view, all amusement.

"You used to say that at grandfather's house there was a man named Loki who came into your room at night and played with you. Sang songs, made up games...cuddled with you. What were we meant to think, Thor? We confronted your grandfather about it and he denied everything, but... I didn't feel safe having you there. He said you'd imagined it, but you were so...vivid. And you would say things, such strange, strange things..."

"Like what? Mom, like what?

She sounded tearful. "That you weren't really our son. That you were different to other children and that Loki was going to take you home. It frightened me, Thor. The idea of someone stealing you away..."

"Enough," Loki said, yanking the phone cord from the wall. "I've let you indulge here far too long."

Thor dropped the handset. "You used to come into my room at night. When I was a child. And now you're back and... You're sick. You were trying to groom me or something..."

"Do I look like I could have been there 20 years ago? Have I aged so very much?"

Thor stared at him. He couldn't be much more than 30. And he looked exactly the same as before...

"That's not possible."

Loki laughed. "Possible and impossible, we are beyond such things now. I was trying to make this as painless as I could, but you've left me no choice. All of this, your happy little life with your parents? Not real. You are not real. The real you belongs at home with me."

"What do you mean, not real? Of course I'm real. I know I'm real."

"You are not from this realm. You made a terrible mistake once and were banished here to Midgard, reborn as an infant with all your memories of your real life put aside. The king, your father, placed you in a loving family, but they are not yours. They will forget you instantly when you are restored to your real self."

"Shut up," Thor said, shaking slightly. "You're not even making sense."

Loki snapped his fingers.

"What does your mother look like, Thor?"

"She..."

There was a hole in his memory. He remembered his childhood, he remembered it all, but where his parents should be, there was nothing but shadows. He couldn't even remember their names.

"I'm dreaming," Thor said. "This isn't real. You're not real. Or you've drugged me or something. Mould in the walls, making me see things."

He circled behind the over-large table that he and Jane never used, keeping a distance between them.

"You were no use as a child," Loki said. "Even if I had managed to take you home, you would have been frustrated by your infant form. I decided to wait for you to come of age, I let you have your pleasant life. And you came back to me, back to the Bifrost site. You're ready to come home."

Thor shook his head. "No. This is my home. This is where I live, me and Jane. I don't understand what you're talking about."

Jane. Jane was real. She was still firmly in his memories, the sound of her laugh, the way her eyes lit up, the taste of her...

"You are Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard, God of Thunder. Master of the hammer, Mjölnir."

Mjölnir. That word made his heart beat faster, though he wasn't sure why.

Loki smiled at him. "Ah, so you recall the way she sings for you, if not me. I want to restore her to you, restore your powers. You were once the most skilled warrior in Asgard. I have need of you."

Thor laughed despite himself. A warrior? Him? Oh, he was strong and big, but he didn't know the first thing about combat.

"What else might you remember?" Loki was saying. "Your mother, Frigga? Your friends perhaps? Lady Sif. Fandral. Hogun. Volstagg. Anything? They will be most anxious to see you again."

"You're not my friend then?" Thor asked.

Loki hesitated.

"Who are you, Loki? Let's say I believe that I'm a long lost prince with a hammer and friends with weird names and that you need me to be a warrior. Why? Who are you?"

Wide green eyes looked up at him, glistening slightly.

"I'm Loki. I'm your brother."

For a second Thor was lost. If this man was his brother, why had he been kissing him in a distinctly mon-brotherly way? Surely that couldn't mean...

And then it hit him.

Imagine a person holding a bucket, capable of holding a finite weight of water.

Now imagine dropping a bucket containing the Atlantic Ocean onto them.

Thor fell to his knees, screaming as his mind struggled to accept a thousand years' worth of memories all in one go.

He could feel his consciousness stretching too wide, too fast, tearing at the edges. His human memories tried to force their way in, out of order, so many confused pictures...

Learning to swim with bright orange arm-bands in a rocky pool beneath the bright moon of home... Drinking mead at a house party from a plastic goblet... Loki writhing in his lap in front of the wood stove...

Loki...

"Thor, look at me. You're going to be all right."

"Hurts..."

"I know. I know it does..."

Thor found his head cradled, Loki holding him close and running fingers through his hair.

Desire slammed into him, his body reacting faster than his mind, shoving Loki down and lunging for his lips.

After a brief yelp, Loki pulled him closer, taking all that Thor would give him greedily.

"I missed you," he whispered. "So many years by myself."

Thor sat up, dragging Loki into his lap, making up for lost time by kissing along his jaw and sucking marks into his neck.

It was all coming back to him, carefree childhood games, sparring together, practising kissing and more in the night while the palace slept around them.

So many passionate nights, Loki arching beneath him, curling around him, biting his shoulders and thighs.

He started clawing viciously at Loki's clothes, trying to be rid of them, feeling his brother tugging at the waistband of his Midgardian sleeping attire.

It was all returning to him, Loki, his Loki, brother, yes...

They barely got out of the lower halves of their clothes before he pinned Loki on the rug, not wanting to stop but looking desperately around for something to ease the way.

"Brother," Loki murmured, possibly just to make Thor moan at it. "I did anticipate this. With baited breath."

Thor stared at him for a moment, noting for the first time a few extra creases on his face. More than he would expect in such a short time. Marks of their separation. Marks of trouble.

"I need to learn you again," he said softly before Loki took his hand and guided it down.

"Then start again, Thor. A second first time."

Yes, he remembered that night. Inevitable really, that having grown used to kisses and touches in the dark, that they would fall further and further. They'd been so young, too young, when they'd made that decision.

He remembered how Loki had cried but insisted that he wasn't in pain, merely overwhelmed by sensation and by trust and love.

His fingers met the unmistakable slick of oil, and understood. Still, he was careful, as careful as he had been all those years ago, watching Loki arch and gasp on his fingers.

"Good?" he said cautiously.

"Yes," Loki breathed. "I was...concerned that you might want to ravish me, you see. I was prepared just in case."

"You know I only want to ravish you when you're ready. And you are tight besides. Tighter than I remember."

A slight huff. "It was been a long wait for me."

Something in Thor's mind was screaming at him for attention, something clamouring from the depths of his rapidly re-knitting memories. Something here wasn't quite right...

Loki reached for his hair, pulling him closer ever so gently, hooking his legs around Thor's waist.

"Don't make it any longer."

Thor looked down into his eyes and fell all over again.

He'd often said to himself that, given his time over, he would make their first time together more romantic than it had been. They had been scared little things, afraid of what their hearts and bodies were telling them to do, afraid of rejection, afraid of confirmation, consummation...

But here they were, fucking on the ragged carpet of a borrowed house, not even fully undressed.

Not that Loki seemed to mind. He let out a soft cry at being breached, but was soon rocking his hips, bucking upwards and demanding more, more movement, more everything.

Thor's mind was parading a thousand variations of this scene before him, Loki lying down on silk then grass then lounging in the baths, his face by turns hungry, playful, angry, dreaming...

He could hear things, the echoes of the centuries, _yes, Thor, more, fuck me, brother, please, please, I need you, harder, more_...

"Touch me. Please, Thor."

His reverie was broken, mind brought quickly back in line with his body, which had moved by instinct and laid claim to what was his.

This hand - his new hand? - knew exactly what to do, when to twist, how fast to stroke. Loki bucked up, giving and taking all at once, letting out a broken cry that Thor could only echo as he followed over the edge.

He lay in Loki's arms for a moment afterwards, sharing lazy kisses.

"There is a bath upstairs," he said. "Come, let me clean you."

With Loki's clothes finally removed, he could take stock of the changes in his brother's body.

Thin, so thin, but new muscle there too. As though Loki had been training intensely but also forgetting to eat properly.

"So this was my punishment for Jotunheim, then," he said, wiping Loki's skin. "All these years. Father is stubborn."

Loki hesitated and Thor felt his stomach lurch.

"What's wrong? What's happened?"

"Father is...in his sleep. And has been so for some time. Your banishment, it... It tipped him over. Mother fears he will never wake."

"Why did you not come for me?"

Loki sighed. "Much as I would like to claim otherwise, the Allfather's powers are not mine to command. I visited you, whenever you were close enough, trying to bring as little attention to myself as possible, but... You were a child. The pain I just put you through, you could never have withstood it. It was safer to wait."

Thor nodded absently. It made sense. 

"But with father sleeping and me gone, that means..."

"Yes," Loki said, looking him in the eyes. "You just fucked your king."

There was a beat of silence before they burst out laughing.

"I've been trying to get through to you gently for months. Singing to you. Leaving you little notes. Trying to give you little glimpses..."

"Holding my hand? Moving my things. Stealing my towels?"

"Can you blame me? I wanted little glimpses of my own."

Thor was tempted to pick him up, but settled for offering a hand and leading the way to his bed. They curled together beneath the covers while Loki filled him in on what he'd missed, the difficult beginning to his reign, maintaining stability.

"They ask for you constantly. I think bringing you back will be the most popular thing I ever do."

"And you said you needed me?"

"Well, I am almost always in need of your attentions, Thor..."

"Loki, be serious. Something specific is worrying you. Tell me."

Loki sighed.

They didn't even hear the door open.

Jane dropped her bag, drawing their attention, sitting up suddenly with their heads snapping to look at her.

Thor's stomach dropped. He remembered Jane. Jane was real and here and he had Loki wrapped around him, extremely male and extremely naked Loki in their bed...

"I can explain," he said, knowing he couldn't. Not in a way she would accept, or even understand.

"Stay where you are or I'll call the police."

Thor stared at her. This wasn't right. What was she saying? Why was she scared?

"Jane, it's me. It's Thor. Your fiancé."

"I don't have a fiancé."

He untangled himself from Loki, wrapping a blanket around his waist, and stood up, moving to block the door.

"What are you talking about?"

"Stay back!"

"You are Dr Jane Foster. You are 31 years old. Your parents are divorced, your mother lives in London, your father in Altanta. You love space and the sea and having your ears nibbled. You are engaged to me."

Jane was backed against the wall, equally distant from both of them, holding up her left hand with its empty ring finger.

"I have never seen you before in my life and I don't know any Thor."

He stared at her for a moment and then back to Loki, his eyes downcast.

"Why doesn't she know me?"

"I'm sorry, Thor. This wasn't supposed to happen."

"What wasn't?"

A heavy sigh. "You never existed. History is trying to snap back with minimal changes. She doesn't remember... You weren't meant to fall in love with one of them. We didn't expect it to happen."

It was like a punch to the stomach. They'd sent him here, left him here, and never bothered to consider that he might develop feelings for a human.

He looked at Jane, his heart aching at how she shied from him.

"I love you," he said helplessly. "You loved me."

"We're leaving," Loki snapped. "Come, Thor. We apologise for scaring you. Good day, Jane."

He didn't want to leave. He didn't want his last memory of Jane to be like this. Loki got up, illusionary clothing appearing on his body, and pushed Thor steadily out.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I wanted to shield you from that."

"My pain or your jealousy?"

Loki slapped him.

"I was faithful to you," he hissed. "Through all those years. You think the king has no offers? That no-one has ever tried to warm my bed? But I was waiting for you."

"And I had no memories. You cannot be angry with me for what I did. I fell in love."

Loki led him out to a clearing in the woods with familiar markings of the Bifrost.

"Go on, then," he said. "Call to her. Your other mistress. Summon Mjölnir."

Thor glared at him, but flexed his fingers, the first strains of a familiar song reaching out to him, rising to a terrible crescendo as Mjölnir raced toward him, reaching his hand with a happy thrum.

Loki called for Heimdall.

***

Looking at his brother, holding the hammer once more and eyes lighting up slightly, Loki smiled to himself.

Thor would come around. He would get over his little Midgardian. Come begging for Loki's forgiveness and love and body.

And with Thor by his side and in his bed, and the help of a few new toys gathered at Frigga's request "for safekeeping," well...

The realms had no idea what was coming for them.


End file.
